Mark Taper Forum is back with ‘American Idiot’: L.A. arts and culture this week
Opening night of Green Day’s “American Idiot” at the Mark Taper Forum last week hosted a raucous packed house. Three distinct types of audience members were in evidence: hardcore fans of the ’90s skate-punk band (wearing black shirts and red ties in homage to frontman Billie Joe Armstrong); enthusiastic members of the Deaf community, thrilled at the chance to see this groundbreaking collaboration between Deaf West Theatre and Center Theatre Group; and lifelong devotees of CTG, relishing the highly anticipated reopening of the Taper after a nearly yearlong closure that shocked the theater world and threw CTG’s future into question.
CTG’s new artistic director, Snehal Desai, who also directed this production, spoke onstage before the show alongside Deaf West artistic director DJ Kurs. The men were ebullient about the show, and Desai talked about the $1 million grant CTG had just received from the S. Mark Taper Foundation in support of the beloved venue. Kurs showed the crowd how to sign “American Idiot,” and Desai joked that the sign for “idiot” is particularly helpful in L.A. traffic.
Then the lights went down and the show began with an energetic performance of the musical’s namesake number in American Sign Language and spoken English, with the lyrics projected in bold lettering on the back walls and sets. The audience howled and pumped their fists. After the performance, guests enjoyed flatbread pizza and sparkling wine on the Music Center Plaza in front of the Taper.
The following day CTG announced a six-performance extension. The show now will close Nov. 16. CTG says “American Idiot” is already among the biggest hits in the Taper’s history, and is on pace to be the venue’s third-highest grossing show of all time.
Alas, Times theater critic Charles McNulty was not as keen on the show. Despite being thrilled to be back at the Taper, McNulty wrote, “This new ‘American Idiot’ seems at cross-purposes with itself. The staging lacks both synergy and focus.”
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, and I’m happy to impart this mostly positive bit of arts news. My colleague Ashley Lee and I have more where that came from.
Best bets: On our radar this week
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‘Christina Ramberg: A Retrospective’
This is the first comprehensive survey in 30 years devoted to the work of the American artist, whose pieces focus on the female form while questioning idealized body types and gender presentation. The exhibition — organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, where it was on view earlier this year — spans approximately 100 works across a range of media including paintings, quilts, sketchbooks and 35mm slides, as well as pieces from public and private collections that have never before been on view. It is open through Jan. 5. UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. hammer.ucla.edu
Fulcrum Festival
Formerly called the AxS Festival, this year’s collection of events and exhibitions is titled Waves Upon Waves and explores all things vibrations — musical, gravitational, seismic, optical, sensing, etc. Among the highlights: William Basinski and Bethan Kellough’s performances and panel discussion (Thursday, UCLA Nimoy Theater), Ellen Fullman and Theresa Wong’s presentation of “Soundless” (Friday and Saturday, WAREHOUSE at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA); the free Torrance Art Museum exhibition “In Medias Res: Expanded” that highlights L.A.’s feminist and post-cyberfeminist artists (on view through Dec. 7). The festival runs Wednesday through Sunday. fulcrumfestival.org
‘Kimberly Akimbo’
With songs by Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay-Abaire, the Tony-winning musical centers on a teenager with an accelerated aging condition. “Her story, unfolding like a dark fairy tale, is as whimsical as it is piercing,” wrote Times theater critic Charles McNulty. “The effect is powerfully life-affirming in the way it reminds audiences of the preciousness of time. Full of quirky humor and pointed satire on grown-up immaturity … [it] will leave you both grinning and deeply touched.” Performances run Oct. 15 through Nov. 3. Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. broadwayinhollywood.com; also playing Jan. 21-Feb. 2. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org
— Ashley Lee
The week ahead: A curated calendar
TUESDAY
“Paper and Light” An exploration of the surprising and innovative ways these two media have been used together to create art features works from the Getty’s extensive collection, including pieces by Delacroix, Manet, Seurat and Tiepolo, as well as those of contemporary artists such as Vija Celmins.
Through Jan. 19. The Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, L.A. getty.edu
Charli XCX and Troye Sivan The two pop singers were veteran cult faves when they announced this joint arena tour back in April. Now, Charli is (finally) a genuine star thanks to the so-called Brat Summer spawned by her latest LP.
7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday. Kia Forum, 3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood. thekiaforum.com
WEDNESDAY
“Murder on the Links” Playwright Steven Dietz’s comic adaptation of the Agatha Christie whodunit sets Hercule Poirot to work solving a case at a private golf club in Merlinville-sur-Mer.
Through Nov. 3. International City Theatre, 330 E. Seaside Way, Long Beach. ictlongbeach.org
“Indivisible: The Glory of Lincoln’s Musical Soul” MUSE/IQUE’s season finale explores the popular songs of the 19th century that President Abraham Lincoln turned to for solace throughout his life.
7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino; 3 and 7:30 p.m. Oct. 20. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. muse-ique.com
THURSDAY
“Ancient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time, and Technology” Artists Ken Goldberg and Tiffany Shlain harness the beauty and power of trees through tree-ring sculptures — two of which are inscribed with milestones in L.A. history.
Through March 2. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. skirball.org
“Life Is a Carnival: A Musical Celebration of Robbie Robertson” The former Band member, who died in August 2023, will be feted by pals and inheritors including Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Bob Weir, Noah Kahan, Elvis Costello, Eric Church, Taj Mahal, Margo Price, Lucinda Williams, Jamey Johnson and Trey Anastasio.
7 p.m. Thursday. Kia Forum, 3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood. thekiaforum.com
“West Side Story” A conversation with EGOT winner Rita Moreno precedes a 70mm screening of the 1961 movie version of the Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim musical, for which the actor won an Oscar.
7:30 p.m. Thursday. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org
Dispatch: Charles McNulty on the current Broadway season
“Reports of the demise of the straight play on Broadway are greatly exaggerated, at least by the evidence of the fall theater season that has come front-loaded with high-profile drama,” writes Times theater critic Charles McNulty in a report from New York City. He gives a detailed rundown of all that he saw, and what it means for theater this year.
While in the east, McNulty also took in a performance of Jez Butterworth’s “The Hills of California,” at the Broadhurst Theatre. The show, directed by Oscar winner Sam Mendes and starring Laura Donnelly, is about a widowed mother of four girls with showbiz aspirations and a traumatic interaction with an American music producer and talent spotter. “What I valued most about ‘The Hills of California,’ which intermittently erupts in nostalgic song, is that it doesn’t impose its interpretation of the characters onto the audience,” writes McNulty.
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Times classical music Critic Mark Swed wrote about two “leading singers of their generation” who performed in town recently: Julia Bullock at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills and Davóne Tines at the Colburn School’s Zipper Hall. Swed noted, “Bullock and Tines are names that easily pair. They are the same age. They are Juilliard-trained. They both came under director Peter Sellars’ wing early, and he gave them their first major exposure, particularly when he was music director of the 2016 Ojai Music Festival.”
Robert Fitzpatrick, the former president of the California Institute of the Arts, who also oversaw L.A.’s 1984 Olympic Arts Festival, has died. He was 84. In 1975, Fitzpatrick was named the second president of CalArts. He was still in that position when he was asked to work with the Olympics on a 10-week long arts festival that boosted the city’s global cultural stature with its ambitious programming. Staff writer Tracy Brown wrote Fitzpatrick’s obituary.
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The holiday shopping season is upon us (do you still have a Prime Day hangover?) and L.A. museums are getting in on the action with Museum Store Sunday on Dec. 1, with the goal of driving attention to local artisans and small businesses. Twenty-eight museum stores across L.A. are set to participate, including the Getty, the Autry, the Broad, Heritage Square Museum, the Japanese American National Museum, the Museum of Tolerance and the Hammer.
The 99-seat Sierra Madre Playhouse announced that it has received the Perenchio Foundation’s 2024 General Operating Support Grant. The $450,000 award is the largest the organization has ever received. “This transformative grant will be instrumental in enabling us to build a sustainable infrastructure, allowing us to increase our capacity to serve our community with an expected 162 performances next year,” said Matthew Cook, Sierra Madre Playhouse’s artistic and executive director, in a statement.
The Tony Award-winning musical “Come From Away” is coming to Long Beach for a single show as part of the Broadway at the Beach series at the Long Beach Terrace Theater on Nov. 19 at 7:30 p.m. This is the first Broadway series at the Terrace.
And last but not least
Speaking of Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, a story from my youth: When I was in high school in the 1990s, I was a HUGE Green Day fan, and the still young and scrappy band would play in the warehouse district at the edge of downtown Tucson at a divey all-ages venue called the DPC. I’d wear my flannel, my Doc Martens and my outrageously baggy Planet Earth pants and sit onstage with about 20 other kids to watch the band perform. Back then, Armstrong would impress the crowd by hocking loogies, spitting them onto the ceiling above the stage and catching them in his mouth as they dripped down. If you had told my 15-year-old self that this icon of youthful rebellion with the chipped teeth and foul mouth would one day be one of the biggest rock stars in the world with his own Broadway show, I would’ve laughed until I cried.
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